US Federal Reserve Orders ICBC to Strengthen AML Policies

The US Federal Reserve has ordered the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to strengthen their anti-money laundering (AML) policies after discovering “significant deficiencies” in the AML systems at ICBC’s New York branch.

It was discovered that ICBC, the world’s biggest lender, had violated the US Bank Secrecy Act by failing to report suspicious activity. As a result, the Federal Reserve demanded that ICBC establish a compliance system where risk assessments of products, customers, and politically exposed persons are conducted. In lieu of fines or other penalties, ICBC must also hire an outside company to review it’s past activity in 2016 in order to determine if suspicious transactions or high risk customers were detected and flagged. According to the Federal Reserve, ICBC agreed to fix it’s compliance program and submit their plans within 60 days.